Breaking

"Hey-- Blyke? I have something I want to talk to you about," said Amelia.

Blyke turned to find her walking toward him. "What is it?" he asked. He was curious as to what made her come to him first.

"It's about Asha. Come here."

Blyke walked down the hallway, out of earshot of the rest, who where whispering in the hallway between their rooms. "What do you want to talk about?" he asked, tilting his head. He had a feeling, but didn't want to admit to it, or it would be that much worse.

Amelia glanced at the others before turning back to Blyke. "I have a question, first. Will you answer it honestly?" She was wringing her hands.

Blyke frowned, but nodded. "Go on." It was unlike Amelia to be this nervous or apprehensive about anything.

"What do you think of Asha, now that she's not the same arrogant person she was before. Now that she seems human, with flaws, yet not human at all?"

Her question surprised him. "Why do you want to know this?" Blyke asked, perhaps a bit more sharply than he intended.

"I'm a woman like she is. And, I care more about her heart than some petty grudge about her being more powerful than me. I may not like any of them, but I sure as hell don't hate them." Amelia's answer was delivered in her normal, snarky way, but somehow it seemed more real than anything she'd ever said before.

Blyke shifted, uncomfortable. This wasn't a conversation he wanted to be having, especially not with Amelia. He had underestimated how much of an open book these things were between the cadre. "Well, I think it's complicated. I mean, she was once the most powerful I'd ever met, and mischievous, but still a good person. Yet now she's powerful and off the rails. She seems like she could snap at any time, and I'd rather not go poof because her Oblivinite went out of control. I mean, it's difficult to give up on someone not even a week after you confessed, but I'm going to have to work harder."

"I recommend you choose quickly, Blyke," said Amelia, quietly, though not weakly.

"Why is that?" he asked.

"That girl has issues, I'll be the first to agree. But I think what she really needs right now is someone who accepts her for who she is. She lost someone important to her, and he was important to her because he loved her even though she was flawed, though she had E-1 lurking under her skin. And once he was gone, because of her, she thought she was another monster." Amelia sighed, looking less nervous and more irritated. "Listen, Blyke. I'm not any friend of Asha Phantomhive's, but I will be the one to point out that Asha does a lot of stuff we don't know. However, I do know with absolute certainty, she hides stuff from us because she doesn't want us getting hurt. I know she defends the school quite often on her own, and I even saw her walking patrols at night, almost every night. She takes everything upon herself.

"Asha's like a cup held under a dripping faucet, the water being danger or a threat, with us-- maybe all of Artemesa, even-- under the cup. She resolutely carries all of the water that drips, but eventually, the water is going to fill to the brim. Yet she still stays there, refusing to let a drop of water spill. You remember what Rosaria showed us once, right?"

Blyke did.

-

One day, Rosaria had demonstrated her control over the water element, which had progressed so much she could actually compress the molecules so she could fit more water in a space.

Rosaria had brought a glass cup, which she filled with water, before compressing it and filling it up further. She'd stopped at one point and showed everyone what looked like a normal glass of water filled to the brim.

"Do any of you know why I stopped?" she asked the auditorium, full of students, the cadre standing against the back walls, and the teachers seated at the staff table at the head of the room, where Rosaria also stood, her back to them.

Asha raised her hand.

Rosaria sighed, ignoring Asha's hand. "How disappointing." She snapped her fingers, saying she was going to add one molecule more to the cup.

The cup exploded, sending water flying twenty feet, soaking a few rows of students, and much more than what everyone had thought was in the cup. Rosaria caught the pieces of glass with tendrils of water before anyone could get cut, gathering them in her hand, save for one Asha had drifted over with a burst of wind.

Rosaria stared at the shard of glass Asha fingered, before turning back to the Great Hall as a whole.

"Control isn't just gaining more power," she'd said. "Control is also knowing when to stop drawing power, before whatever is channeling or holding that power shatters into nothingness. The more powerful, the more power can the drawn on, but there's always a risk that the wielder will draw more than their body can handle, and they'll explode like the cup did. There are two possible ways to keep that from happening. Who knows?"

Asha raised her hand yet again, the shard of glass somehow gone from her fingers, dark blue eyes almost glowing in the shadowed back.

This time, Rosaria let Asha answer.

"The first is to find a bigger cup, or reinforce the one you have so it doesn't break. This would be physical, mental, and spiritual training for humans, typically. Increasing your spiritual capabilities expands the amount of power you can draw on and retain. For mental abilities, this is control in the sense that you can do exactly what you want with it. And for physical abilities, this will expand the way you can use your abilities. To fly for a long time, it's better to have strong back muscles. To run like the winds, strong leg muscles. Et cetera. Finding a bigger cup allows for more water."

"And the second?" asked Ethelyn, piercing blue eyes staring straight at Asha with a startling intensity.

Asha gave a small chuckle. "You can always dump some out." She gave Ethelyn a glare. "Of course, this comes with risks. Dumping it out of the cup doesn't mean it's gone. It's still there, just somewhere else. And when you add more and more and more water, then dump it out again and again and again… all you did was change containers. Eventually, this room would fill. Slowly, yes, but it would, and when it's full, will you open the doors to let it into the rest of the school? And if that's full, will you just let it flood out into the world? Until there's no more land left and everything will drown?" Asha gave a small laugh again, this time a trace of bitterness detectable. "No, many would rather keep their water in their own cups."

"You're correct."

This time it was Ethelyn who spoke up. "What happens, pray tell, if you do none of these, but insist to hold more and more in your cup?"

Asha had smiled her usual cocky smile, but something lurked underneath. "Then both you and your cup with shatter, beyond the point of return."

-

Blyke hadn't been sure if he liked her answers, but he hadn't spoken up, as it wasn't his place to. Blyke looked directly at Amelia. "What about it?"

"Well, Asha continues to compress the water, to make room for more. Now, we don't know what her limit is, but in the end, if someone doesn't siphon the water and dump some out, or give her something to channel it into, so her tolerance expands, then she'd going to break, and everything she's been bottling up will come spilling out on us. And I have a feeling you do not want to know what she's been doing all those times she's snuck out."

Blyke ran a hand through his hair. This was a stupid conversation. Why was it his business what she was doing every day? Why would he care? "Was there a reason you told me all these, other than to accuse me?"

Amelia smiled slightly, looking a little tired, as if his comments were somehow draining. "Yes. I just wanted to remind you of something."

Blyke gestures for her to go on.

"Remember, Blyke. Asha is just a girl. No matter if she has strange powers, or is even completely different than she was before. Even if she grew another head, she would still just be a girl who was lost. Someone who needs guidance." Amelia smiled completely, a bright smile, as if she understood the feeling of once being lost, and then being found. "Just remember that. Because I have a feeling that, should everything go to hell and she's about to make a stupid choice, she'll listen to you. Goodnight."

Blyke watched Amelia vanish into her room, standing in the hallway until the rest of the cadre filed into their quarters, thinking. He wished all of this would just settle itself, but he firmly believed that no such luck would appear.

Instead, he felt like this was just the opening move in a game that included them all, and many more shadowed players, but who was the puppet master?

Could the one behind all this be Asha?

Could it be Arae?

What about a player none of them would have expected?

And what did they want?

Power?

Money?

A title?

Artemesa?

Or… the world?

Blyke shook his head as he walked into his room, clearing his head of the jumbled thoughts tumbling around inside it. But as he lay on his bed that night, awake due to all the thoughts and theories thrashing in his mind, he couldn't help but think this was all just a first move of some game.

A horrible, dangerous game.

What if it all was just an opening, a prelude, for something that could shake the world? And if it was, why would someone go through that much trouble? What could be their motive? And what if it was something shattering?

What if this were all just some elaborate, sinister dance to get something.

Or break someone.

∽